


Child of Iron

by AMLark



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bounty Hunters, Boba Fett - Freeform, Dark Rey, Dark Side Rey, F/M, Mandalorian, Mandalorian Wars, Mando’a, Rey is a Mandalorian, The Boba Fett Prequel No One Asked For, sort of canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-06 00:38:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15182885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMLark/pseuds/AMLark
Summary: Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya.- Train your sons to be strong but your daughters to be stronger.Rey is adopted by Fenn Shysa and raised as a Mandalorian, but after his death she is drawn into the fight between the Resistance and the First Order. She holds the balance of the force, but will it be enough to bring peace to the Galaxy?Also known as ‘The Boba Fett/Reylo Fic Literally No One Asked for’I am somewhat familiar with Mandalorian Canon, but a lot of the Legends content for Boba Fett and various other characters who will be present/referenced in this fic is negated with the new Canon. I’m picking and choosing what gets used, but I do hope to include many references to the original Mandalorian Canon.Also generous use of Mando’a and its translations.





	1. Treasure

My hands were bleeding by the time I dug the helmet from the wreckage.

Blood dripped down the T-shaped visor like tears, but I felt the tug of recognition, and despite the unrelenting Jakku sun a chill swept down my back. The helm was green, a hue I had never seen. I coveted it as only a scavenger could, with a longing that only those who spend their lives finding treasures in trash can possess.

When I slipped it over my head it fell forward slightly, a helmet made for a warrior, not a half starved desert child. Despite the too large size I spent an entire day digging the rest of the armor out of the wrecked ship and lugging it to the At-At I called home. The speeder I had salvaged and repaired needed a compressor valve, but portions had been tight lately so I had taken to dragging whatever scrap I could scavenge in an old tarp. It only served to exhaust me further, and no matter how many portions I would eat I never felt full.

The sight of the armor in the hovel I called home made me forget that hunger, if only for a moment. This armor was special, even my untrained eye could tell. Later I would learn that it was Beskar, a material renowned for its durability. I have even heard rumors it can withstand the blade of a lightsaber although it’s not like the Jedi exist anymore.

I’m not sure what possessed me to hold onto the armor. It would have been worth more portions than I had ever received from Plutt, more portions than all of Niima outpost had, maybe. But I left it behind the next day, and soon days turned into months, and the armor stayed in my At-At, and that hum of rightness that I felt the day I unearthed it from the sand faded into the background, and I did what all scavengers did.

I survived. 

…….

Its funny, how days bleed into weeks which fall into months and in the end you are left with years. I’m still not sure of my exact age, but now I at least can mark the passage of time from Centaxday to Primeday. On Jakku one day was no different than any other, each day nothing more than another scratch on the wall, and although I must have grown, I never noticed.

Until one day the armor fit. 

Of course it was still slightly too big, but the plates no longer overlapped, and the helmet stayed on my head so long as I had my 3 buns in place. The first time I tried it on fully I stood before the small fragment of a mirror I kept in the At-At, and a warrior looked back at me. 

It wasn’t that the armor made me any stronger than I was, I had been fighting other scavengers and Plutt’s thugs with my staff since I arrived on Jakku. But it awoke something in me. I was no longer a victim, I could be the villain. I would be no one’s slave. The armor meant that I was free. 

And what does one do when they are freed? They rebel.

I wore the armor, my identity comfortably anonymous behind it’s distinctive helm, and headed to Niima outpost. The Cantina was crowded, as it almost always was, and Plutt sat in his usual seat in the corner, surrounded by the thugs he paid to beat the scavengers and keep them from rebelling. 

Something broke in me that day. I saw the man who had been the key to my survival, his portions the only thing keeping me from starving and wasting away, becoming just another nameless body in the graveyard of jakku’s star destroyers, and here he was drinking enough in one sitting to pay for a month of my survival. 

He looked at me when I killed him, and it was fear that I saw there. 

It made me feel powerful.

…..

Looking back I realize how ignorant I was, to think I could kill a king, even so lowly a one as Unkar Plutt and not think people would notice. 

Despite my newfound freedom I returned the At-At. I was hesitant to leave, caught between the draw of a great wide galaxy and that ever present fear that if I left I would never again be with my family. I kept scavenging, and when I went to Niima a few days later I expected some of the scavengers to be trading directly with the travelers who passed through, but instead I found disaster.

A Hutt had arrived, and everything was the same. 

That night I killed him too. 

…

The cycle continued until one day a human stood at Plutt’s stand, and when I went to trade my scrap he stopped me.

“Do you know where the Mandalorian is?” He asked, and when I met his eyes I realized he was the first who had looked at me and seen me as a person, not just a scavenger worth less than the scrap they found.

“I don’t know what that is.” I said, mentally cataloguing the list of alien species I had encountered. Mandalorian sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it with an image in my head.

“A human, who wears jade armor. I heard that he has been terrorizing this planet. He killed a Hutt. ”

I looked closer at the man, for the first time noticing the armor that he also wore beneath his cowl. It was similar to my own armor, although his was black. His face was lined, his hair grey. He looked older than any of the scavengers I knew, but scavengers didn’t tend to live long lives. His gaze was calculating, and fear climbed up my throat. This wasn’t Plutt, or some other lowly overlord. This man was a warrior, one I knew I couldn’t hope to defeat.

“I haven’t seen anything” I replied and left. I had to get away from Jakku and quickly.

 

 

In the At-At I threw together my few possessions, taking all the portions I had managed to stockpile and a few credits that had taken me years to collect. It would have to be enough. I kshed my scavenger garb and drew on the armor, tucked the helm under my arm, and prepared to leave for the last time. I spared a final glance for the wall of days, each marked with a dash. It felt so insignificant to have my time here reduced to a series of marks. Even then, on the precipice of my entire life changing it felt like my loneliness would never end.

In some ways, all these years later, it still hasn’t. 

When I climbed out of the At-At the man was there. 

I was surprised, but not afraid. We faced off in silence for a moment, as the sun set over the dunes behind him. 

“It’s you, the little scavenger,” He said, more to himself than to me, his words nearly silent behind the shifting of sand. 

“Did you come here to kill me?” 

“I came here to stop whoever was impersonating a Mandalorian, not murder a child.” He says, coming to kneel before me. “ _Tion'ad hukaat'kama?_ ”

The words were meaningless to me, but when I looked into his weathered face, so close to mine, I saw a reflection of myself, someone else who had once needed a family. 

“What does it mean?” 

“It means _Whose watching your back?_ in Mando’a.”

“I can watch my own back” I responded, offended that this man thought I couldn’t take care of myself, despite the fact that I had murdered a series of men who had tried to hurt me. “I don’t need anyone else”

“That may be true little scavenger, but sometimes a little help makes life much easier.” He noticed my bag of supplies, pitifully small in comparison to the expanse of desert before me. “Why did you kill them?”

_I killed them because they were bad, because I starved while they hoarded portions, because my life was worth less to them than the scrap I hauled._

_I killed them because it made me feel powerful to no longer be Rey the Scavenger, and instead be some creature in a mask._

_I killed them because I thought it would make me free._

“I killed them because nobody else would.” I said instead. 

He stood then, the sun silhouette got his figure in darkness, and extended his hand to me. 

“What’s your name little scavenger?”

“Rey”

“Well Rey, I see now that you are no impersonator. You have the heart of a warrior, a true Mandalorian. I will not punish you for killing those who hurt you, but you must learn Resol’nare, and become a Mandalorian yourself if you wish to wear the armor.” He says, waving his hand at the helm beneath my arm. 

“And you would teach me?” I asked, wary of a deal with any stranger. They always came with strings. 

“We do not teach just anyone.” He says, and a small sadness creeps into his soft voice. “We teach our children, and raise them as warriors.”

It’s everything I ever wanted-a family, power, to know my place in the galaxy-but still I hesitate. 

What if they come back?  
The belonging you seek is not behind you Rey, but ahead. 

I’m not sure where that voice came from, whose words entered my mind, but I had heard them before, in the darkest and coldest desert nights, and I have heard them again since. 

I nodded my agreement, and with it changed my fate. 

He placed his hand on my brow, its warmth seeping into my skin. “ _Ni kar'tayl gai sa'ad_ , I know your name as my child. I name you Rey Shysa, daughter and heir to the Manda’lor, Fenn Shysa”

….

“ _Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum_ ” I say before pouring out a thimble of Ticaar on the dusty floor of the Cantina. I honor the Mandalorian tradition, to always let the dead drink first.

“ _I am still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal._ You Mandalorians were always so dramatic with your traditions.” Comes a voice from behind me, I don’t particularly wish to be disturbed, but speaking Mando’a in a cantina isn’t exactly subtle on my part. My armor may hide my face, but I am anything but anonymous. The green and red helm of Kira Fett is as well known in the underworld of the Galaxy as that of Kylo Ren. 

“And you are?” I ask, keeping my eyes trained on my glass as the man slides up to the bar. I can see his profile in my peripheral, a sharp nose and orange hair in the smoke filled air of the Cantina. 

“Kira Fett, I presume?” He responds, ignoring my question. I stiffen at the sound of my alias, even if the stranger has clearly not figured out that Kira Fett the bounty hunter isn’t the man most expect him to be. 

“If you’re looking for a Mandalorian, you’re barking up the wrong soul tree. I may speak Mando’a but I’m a Bounty Hunter” I say bitterly. When Fenn adopted me I didn’t know that he was the last scion of a dead race. He had hoped that I would be able to bring what remained of the Mandalorians back together, to make them a warrior race once more. 

Instead I used the skills he gave me to become one of the most notorious Bounty Hunters in the Galaxy, no better than all the others who had abandoned him before. I even adopted the name of one of his greatest rivals, mostly because it helped me get my start in the criminal underworld of the galaxy, but I also knew it would anger him. 

I was not the daughter he had hoped for. 

I knew when he died, it felt like a distant star had gone dark, and when the droid arrived carrying his dying missive I shed no tears. 

He still named me Mandalore. So I came to this cantina, hoping to dull some of the pain, he was my father, after all. 

There is no rest for the wicked it seems.

“There will always be a war going on somewhere, and where there’s smoke I tend to find fire” He says, idly picking some imperceptible amount of dirt from beneath his fingernails. 

I give the man my full attention now, and I’m not surprised by what I find. Clothes that are so impeccably clean it's likely this is the first time they’ve been outside of the interior of a star destroyer. Hair slicked back in a way that suggests he thinks everything has order, and nose turning up slightly at the sight of the dirty Mos Eisley Cantina, as if the very existence of such an establishment is a personal offense to him. 

“What’s the job Hux” I’ve never met the man personally, but it’s my business to know who is handing out bounties in the Galaxy. The First Order has steadily been rising in the last few years, and Hux is their official figurehead. “And don’t play coy with me. I need all the details if you actually want it done.”

“There is a droid, it was on Jakku, but has been sighted on Takodana”

“Did Bazine give you the tip?” I ask, my mind already calculating how long it will take me to get to the planet. Less than a standard hour, if Hux can go ahead and get to the point already. 

“Netal did sight the droid, although she was wary of approaching the group it was traveling with.”

“Creating trouble at Maz’s is asking to be banned. Most of my contracts come from that establishment.”

“Well, it’s good for you that the First Order has plans to acquire many individuals with your particular skill set. Retrieve the droid and we will put you on retainer, 5,000 credits per week.” He replies. Placing a small key on the counter before me. “A code break, use this to enter the shields of the Finalizer and deliver the droid.”

With that he spins on his polished heel, two stormtroopers who had been flanking the door falling into step as he exits into the night. 

Time to get to work.


	2. Vision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey pursues BB8.

No matter how many times I go to Takodana, I am always amazed by the planet. I remember a time when I didn’t think there was this much green in the whole galaxy. 

I am admiring the view from an alcove of Maz’s Cantina when man slides into the bench seat opposite my own. 

I shift my head towards him, trying to wordlessly communicate that I want him to _Kriff_ off, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Most people give a bounty hunter in Mandalorian armor a wide berth.

“Can I help you?” I ask, the modulator of my helm distorting my voice so it sounds distinctly male. 

“Yeah, um” He keeps glancing back to the table where Maz is sitting, the droid I am after rolling slightly by her side. A Wookie sits beside her and along with a man with grey hair, from my vantage I don’t have a clear view of his face. “I was looking for passage to the outer rim?”

“Do I look like a smuggler to you?” I respond, my voice spitting with vitriol. He swallows visibly and stands, momentarily blocking my view of the Droid’s table. 

“I mean, Maz told me you had a ship. I just, I know the First Order, I can pay for my way—“

“Leave.” I interrupt, but the damage is done. The three life-forms remain at the table but the droid is gone. 

I stand immediately, trying not to draw attention to myself as I stride through the Cantina. The door is a heavy wooden thing, one I surely would have noticed being opened for a small droid incapable of using a handle. There are smaller doors off of the main room, leading to various private rooms, and an ascending staircase. Something draws me to a staircase tucked in a corner behind the bar, one that is shrouded in darkness. 

It calls to me. 

I stride up to the bar and order a drink. When the bartender’s back is turned and the stranger from the table returns to Maz’s side I slip down the staircase. The basement of Maz’s castle is dark, bathed in an eerie blue light and each step brings a drop in temperature so sharp that even in my armor I get a chill. I don’t see the droid, but I feel as though an invisible line is dragging me forward, that hum of _knowing_ filling my core. 

I enter a storage closet, and the room is filled with various objects. I spy old droid parts, and an Old Republic era clone troopers helmet, along with an impressive array of defunct currencies and outdated blasters. The tug keeps pulling me into the depths of this hoard, until I am standing before a chest. 

My entire body vibrates with anticipation, and I reach down to open the chest when—

_Kylo Ren stands before me, surrounded by his Knights. Rain pounds them, and I can feel it pattering on my bare skin, my armor having disappeared, and the tattered fabric of my old scavenger clothing soaks with the storm. I step back and Kylo’s head snaps to mine, and despite the mask which keeps him anonymous to the world I feel like I can see straight through him._

_I whirl, desperate to run, but as soon as I take a step I am behind a stranger, the endless buildings of Coruscant rippling behind him like sunlight on waves, his dark hair framing dark brows and when he turns his hand comes to pick up mine, and our fingers just brush when—_

_I stumble and when I throw my hands before me the knights are gone, and instead I am on Jakku, I see a younger version of myself, screaming and clawing to escape from Unkar Plutt as my parent’s ship shoots into the sky. I want to grab her, to tell this past version of me that they aren’t my real family, that my father is coming, and all these years of loneliness will lead me to him._

_I blink, and I am looking at myself. I look younger, but it might just be because my arms are bare and free from the jagged scars I now cover with wraps. I am in an unfamiliar cockpit, curled over a strangers side and whispering into their ear as the blue lights of hyperspace paint my skin different colors of night._

_‘ **Rey** ’_

_Finally I’m in Fenn’s ship, now an adolescent who has tired of the endless hours of combat training and reciting the Resol’nare. I desperately wish for a glimpse of Fenn, to see my Father’s face one last time. As always his back is to me, hunched over a star map._

_Then I’m in a forest, snow blankets the ground and Kylo is once again there, igniting his saber—_

_‘ **these are your first steps** ’_

_The voice stops echoing and I’m in a crowd of people, they eddy and swirl and keep moving, and across the swell of bodies I see him, the man from my visions once more. A scar bisects his face, and even in the chaos I can feel his eyes on me, his mouth opens and although I can’t hear his voice I see his lips call my name._

_This is the last vision, although I’m not certain how I know that. I am in a dark place, maybe a cave, and my hair is plastered to my skin which itches with salt. I hear the ocean distantly, and before me lies and endless mirror. I raise my hand, and as I move to touch my fingers to their reflection two shadows rise before me, before coalescing into a single figure and—_

Maz Kanata is tapping my face with her small hands, pinching my cheeks and pulling open one eyelid.

“Get off me Maz!” I groan, before sitting up. I bite my teeth to keep myself from swaying with vertigo.

Maz appraises me behind her oversized spectacles, using my helm as a makeshift seat. She is one of the few people in the Galaxy who know that Kira Fett is also Rey Shysa, a secret that Fenn entrusted to her before I struck out on my own. She must have pulled off my helmet when I lost consciousness. 

The droid hovers behind her, like it is uncertain whether it should stay.

“What are you doing here child” Maz asks, “You are lucky BB8 was around and came to get me. Someone else could’ve pulled that helm off and all your time behind a mask would be for naught”

“Looking for work.” I lie, sitting up as Maz now repurposes the chest as a seat. In her hands she holds a silver rod, some type of tech I haven’t seen before. “How did you know about the vision?”

“I thought you would be done with the Bounty chasing nonsense, now that your father is gone.” Her words are harsh, and I recoil. “Did you not think I would hear of old Fenn’s end? That man survived for years on determination alone, I don’t believe it was some sickness that finally got to him. No, no, he died of a broken heart.”

“Don’t hang Fenn’s death on me. It was his time”

“I’m not saying it wasn’t his time, Force knows I’ve been waiting for my time for quite a while. But it’s not like a Mandalorian to go in peace, not when there is a war to fight in.” Maz pauses, her hands tapping the silver rod slightly. “What did it show you?”

“No,” I say, my eyes trained on the foreign tech. “How’d you know I had a vision?”

“What did you see child?” 

“Some were my past, things that have already happened, and some were strange, things I wasn’t present for, and scenes that have not happened.”

“Yet. Some have not happened yet, child.” Maz says “They will occur, in their own ways.”

I shudder involuntarily. I have yet to cross paths with Kylo Ren, though his visage is one that most of the Galaxy would recognize instantly. Something about the vision makes me feel seen though, as if he had seen me just as much as I had seen him. 

“What is that Maz?” I respond, pointing to the item she clutches like it is some priceless artifact.

“This is the lightsaber that belonged to Luke Skywalker, and his father before him.” 

“Luke Skywalker? I thought he died ages ago.” I say. Of course Fenn knew of the last Jedi, he had killed one of the last Mandalorians, Boba Fett. Fenn never mentioned that the he was still alive though. 

“The Skywalker clan is one that endures. The Jedi once thought that the fate of the Galaxy rested on their men’s shoulders, but I always thought they were only there to tie the women in their lives together. Anakin and Luke may have had the force, but the great loves of their lives held a stronger power, and they are the ones who brought true light to the Galaxy. Now this lightsaber calls to you Rey.”

“Why me?” I say, the weight of my armor feeling suddenly heavy on my body. _Why am I a magnet for the legacies of others? Will I ever be the architect of my own fate, not tied to a destiny by some Force beyond my control?_

“Only time will tell, but for now I have someone you should meet.”

Before we can move I hear the tell-tale scream of TIE fighters, and the entire foundation shakes. 

The First Order has arrived. 

 

…….

 

Maz and I exit the castle, and it’s chaos. 

A transport has landed, and stormtroopers exit in rows. Blaster shots pepper the air, and the distinct char of burned flesh that accompanies them fills my nose. Some of Maz’s patrons have talent the offensive, but most are scrambling to get to their ships, dispersing into the forest like insects under the heel of a boot. 

Why is the First Order here, if Hux sent me to retrieve the droid? 

I don’t have to wait long for an answer, because it’s at that moment that Kylo Ren steps down from the transport. 

My breath catches, and I’m unsure if it’s from fear or something else. He scans the area, though BB8 and Maz are safely concealed below a crumbling wall, my helm is still visible. 

When he sees it he stops. 

“Rey, you must take BB8 and escape.” Maz says, “He has a map to Luke Skywalker, take him I to his base, help the Resistance.” 

Then she places the lightsaber in my hand.

“Maz, don’t put this on me, this isn’t my fight!” I yell, my voice once again anonymous behind the modulator. She is already turning to fight, blaster in her small hands. 

“This is the only Fight, the fight against the Darkness.” She backs up as the first blaster shots start ringing out behind her. “You must choose the belonging you seek, it will not be given to you easily.”

Then she is gone. 

BB8 chirps at me, concerned. 

“Oh come on, I’m not going to leave you here.”

 

….

 

I am meters from my ship when the sky turns orange. 

I turn my helm to face its arc across the sky, a burning brand against the perfect blue of this planet’s atmosphere. The light seems to crawl slowly across the stars, but I know that whatever weapon elicits that beam is moving a thousand times faster than the speed of light. The birds cluck and titter, the wind still rustles through the leaves. The sun is cheery and pleasantly warm on my metal limbs, light tufts of clouds dot the sky. This world is peaceful.

When the beam hits the first planet I scream.

My voice echoes, too loud within the enclosed metal cage of my helm. I slide to the forest floor, my knees crushing through dirt as I lay my hands on the earth in front of me, as if I can physically tether myself to this planet even as my soul is cut into ribbons and ravaged by more death than could ever be quantified, an untold number of lives blinking out in just a few seconds. 

There are no words for the fear, the pain, and although its a statistical impossibility I feel as if I am experiencing every death as it happens, even as they travel from systems away. That hum of life that I always feel, that helped me survive the sand and led me to the lightsaber which now feels like an impossible weight in my hands.

Then as soon as the pain arrived, and somehow worse, it extinguishes. 

The thin film of beliefs and unexamined truths I built around my carefully constructed self view tears apart. 

I feel the Force—life, death, chaos, peace. It whips through my body with such speed that I lose all sense of self, and for a moment I am nothing more than a pinprick of light in an endless galaxy. 

He is what draws me back to my body. 

I look up from where my hands have gauged claw marks in the soil, and he stands at the edge of forest. A hood rests on his helm, but it does nothing to hide the chrome lines that outline his visor. 

He is a well of darkness so deep that I wonder if I allowed myself to slip in if I would ever find an end or spend eternity in the fall. The chasm of his presence in the force draws a gravity all its own, and my hands move forward of their own accord. 

_Am I actually crawling towards **Kylo Ren**?_

Whatever spell that slowed down the world for a moment is broken.

“BB8 get to the ship!” I yell, and the droid swivels its head back and forth before speeding towards the ramp. 

I feel the force grip me then. 

My blaster hand is frozen to my side, and the black specter of Kylo Ren raises his hand. I can feel him in my mind instantly, combing through my dearest memories, my most guarded fears. The chasm that is his presence in the force is a yawning dark thing, magnetic with potent power. It brushes against my mind, and as he pulls apart my defenses I slip past his. 

For a moment it’s just us, and although of course I don’t know what sort of disfigurement hides behind the mask I feel like he is naked before me, so exposed is his soul. We are both still feeling the echoes of an entire system being destroyed, our connections to the force magnified in the wake of such a disruption. 

And for some reason, he feels like home. 

 

It's only a moment that I’m in his mind, but it’s enough for me to wrest control of my body from him. His mask hides his face, but I _feel_ how stunned he is when I stumble the last few feet into the _Free Mandalore_ , and the ship’s ramp closes behind me. 

When I take off he is still below, a spot of unnatural black disrupting the neutral tones of Takodana’s landscape, until the bright white dots of stormtroopers surround him. I felt the depth of his Force ability, I know with his immense power he could probably crash my ship, or at the very least delay me so the star destroyer that is doubtlessly orbiting the planet could pull me into their tractor beam. Instead he simply watches the _Free Mandalore_ , and I can feel his focus on me until I jump to hyperspace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments, kudos and generally any feedback is appreciated immensely! Don’t be a stranger, I promise I am much kinder than most of my protagonists. 
> 
> I am still updating my other fic but just needed to work on something different to clear my brain. The new S&H update should be up at the absolute latest on Thursday, but I’m really trying to get it out before then.


	3. Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We have some EU appearances and Rey and Finn connect before running into Dark-and-Brooding.

_Snap_

Temmin Wexley never stops moving. 

He is tinkering with a protocol droid, or absent-mindedly reorganizing his collection of holodisks, and even twirling a blaster in his hands. The man is just past the prime of his life, but his incessant energy brings a youthful quality to his aging face and neatly cropped grey beard. 

Still, I can’t stand the snapping.

“Temmin, how much for the droid?”

_Snap_

“What’d you say it was, a resistance droid? Why don’t you just give it to them, they’re over in the Ilenium system you know”

Well I didn’t know that, but I still don’t want to take them the droid. I’m not sure just how many people knew about the bounty on BB8, but if Bazine Netal knew and she was at Maz’s the entire Galaxy has heard. And that was before Kylo Ren, dark and brooding himself showed up personally to retrieve it. Everyone with a ship is going to be on the trail of a certain white and orange astromech. 

“Can’t you get it to them, I know you and Leia go way back.”

I gingerly walk deeper into his workshop BB8 tapping against my calves. Temmin’s hideout on Akiva is overflowing with more tech than I can catalogue. I spy the head of a Clone War era Battle droid, a outdated repulsor canon, and several pod racers that are definitely out of place on this forest planet. 

“I don’t know Leia _that_ well Kira, you know I didn’t exactly agree with the resistance.”

He picks up the head of the protocol droid, and although it’s just components I still feel uncomfortable looking at the appendage while he tinkers with it. They do have feelings.

 **[REY or KIRA FETT—Status: conditional ally** Please do not leave me with the droid killer.]

“Oh he isn’t a droid killer, he runs a contraband shop.” I say, nudging BB8 further into the workshop with my foot. Raising my voice, I call to Temmin. “I’m sure you could get a good price on him. Maz told me he has a map to Luke Skywalker. Can you believe that?”

I laugh to shake off my earlier vision. That was an anomaly, but it definitely was a sign that I need to get the _Kriff_ out of this job. I’ve never looked too closely at the First Order’s dealings before, but I am haunted by the feeling that overcame me on Takodana. I _felt_ the Hosnian system die, and even now I can feel Temmin, and the thousands of lives in the city around me, like gnats in a Dagobah swamp. 

No, that’s not right. Every single one of those is a person, with their own story, dreams and fears. 

“Luke? I thought he was dead.”

“Apparently not” I reply. “BB8, why don’t you show us that map?”

BB8 begins projecting the holo, which rotates slowly around the room. In the blue glow Temmin seems younger, more excited. I wonder if my features have changed with the weight of what happened to the Hosnian system, I am glad that I came to Temmin, that I don’t have to hide behind the mask, which I have fucked under my arm, while I try to find someone else to help the Resistance.

“That’s no system I’m familiar with” Temmin replies. “You’d need access to Imperial archives probably, the New Republic didn’t have enough time or resources to create alot of backups for their records, and most were probably lost with the Hosnian system.”

“I’m not going to find Luke Skywalker.” I say. “I came here because I thought you could get BB8 to the Resistance, or whatever other offshoot has popped up. I am heading to the Unknown regions. I heard about a job from the Kanjiclub that I need to pick up.”

I want the bounty on the droid, but Kylo Ren was clearly unaware that Hux had hired me to bring in the lost astromech. If I get in the middle of whatever power struggle those two are having I’m more likely to have my arm cut off than get paid. 

And more than that, I felt Kylo Ren when the Hosnian system was wiped out. I felt his consciousness flicker, an echo of the loneliness that I have felt my whole life beneath the raging pain of countless lives blinking out of existence. I’m not sure if I can stand to look at that mask and not know what lives beneath it, if I will see a reflection of myself in the monster. 

We both hide behind our masks. 

“Look, I don’t even know who they would send to get Luke now. Leia is General, and Han gave up the fight years ago.”

“Han Solo? The Smuggler?”

“No the rebellion general, although he did resign his post pretty quickly after the war.” _Snap-Snap._

“We might as well still have the Empire, it doesn’t feel like much has changed.” I say, “Back then a bounty hunter could at least make a decent living”

“If they were willing to deal with the Hutts. Make no mistake, I heard what they did on Kashyyk. The Empire was hell, but hell can be anywhere for those who are subject to it.” _Snap_ ”The New Republic may have failed, but they were the natural rebound from a totalitarian state. Leia saw what was happening, she knew that the fight wasn’t over, but sometimes people become so numb to war that they assume the lack of it is peace.”

My mind wanders to what Maz had said to me, about the only fight, the fight against the darkness. I shudder. 

It’s then that someone stumbles into Temmin’s workshop. 

Dark skin, brilliant smile, and a voice that doesn’t seem to understand the weight of the situation we find ourselves in. 

“Hey so uh, I was hiding in this bounty hunter’s ship, but it looks like he is gone so I thought I’d tell you--” His eyes finally meet mine, and for a second he seems confused by the look of anger I’m sure is painted on my face, then his eyes flick down and--

_Snap_

“You” I say at the same time the stranger does. 

I’m not wearing my helm, but the body of my armor is recognizable enough. I see the realization as it passes over his features, and his innocent rambling stops as he swallows visibly.

“You’re bounty hunter from Takodana, that’s your ship.”

_Snap_

I am frozen, rage and fear warring together inside me, and I have the strangest urge to put up my hands and strangle this stranger. He has seen part of me that so few have, the two halves I have tried so desperately to keep seperate. The lonely scavenger and the solitary bounty hunter, one helpless and anonymous, the other infamous and threatening. It’s a secret I’ve kept for so long, two parts of my lives that only a select few have been allowed to know about in tandem that I don’t how to feel. 

Although strangely, I feel a little less alone. 

 

…..

I leave the droid with Temmin, but drag the stranger away. I brought this to the man’s doorstep, and I don’t want to be the reason the First Order executes him. 

“You’ve been on my ship the whole time?” I snap, my gauntlets digging into the man’s leather jacket as I hold him in a death grip. I know his type when I see it, and he is looking for an opportunity to run and abandon the fight. 

“Well when things got sticky in Takodana I just hopped on the first ship I could find. I was there to get passage to the Outer Rim anyway, and the first people who picked me up on Jakku were heading right to the Resistance. It would’ve been a death sentence to stay with them.”

I nod, but keep dragging him through Myrra, the Akivan Capitol. The old Satrap’s palace looms above us like some haunted estate, and I cringe at the tales of the sithspawn that lived beneath the city in the abandoned Droid factories. 

The First Order’s transport’s had touched down on the outskirts of the city, the central district being much too dense for them to unload their contingents of stormtroopers. We weave through the streets that narrow and curl until we are in the shadow of the Satrap’s palace. 

“What’s your name anyway?” He asks. 

“ _Copaani mirshmure'cye, vod?_ ” 

“You can understand that?”

“I can speak it idiot. Mandalorian, you know?” I say, motioning towards my armor. He gives me that same blank stare, an unconscious smile tugging at his lips. He does look kind of adorable, in a lost puppy sort of way. 

“Well what’d you say?” He asks, just as I spy a patrol of stormtroopers at the end of the alley we are fleeing down. I grab him, slamming him into a doorway, then twisting so he is between me and the patrol, his large body blocking my armor from view, while ripping my helm off my head and dropping it between my feet. They won’t recognize my face, but if Kylo Ren has managed to follow me here he surely has told the stormtroopers to look for my armor. 

I lean forward, so my mouth is next to his ear. The stormtroopers pass by, sparing only a glance for a man and woman in the alcove of the inner-city. They don’t look long enough to see my armor, or the face of who I now know is the deserter. “I said _Are you looking for a smack in the face, mate?_ ”

And that’s when Kylo Ren steps into my vision. 

He looks different than he seemed in the vision beneath Maz’s castle, his posture more stooped, his armor dusty and shredded from his flight from Takodana. He doesn’t look our way, doesn’t so much as pause in his relentless march behind the squadron of stormtroopers. I don’t dare dip into that strange power that awoke within me for fear of drawing his attention, but I yearn to reach out and brush against his mind once more.

I want to know if he feels it too. 

Then he is gone, marching further into the city. 

“You want to know my name, deserter?” I ask, my eyes never leaving where Kylo Ren slipped from my vision. “Well I have an idea of how to get out of this mess, and you’re going to help.”

 

…..

 

We couldn’t return to the _Free Mandalore_ without going through the mounds of stormtroopers that are combing the city, so in the relative privacy of the doorway we traded clothing. Now I run my fingers over the soft leather of Finn’s jacket, while he straps himself into my armor. 

 

 _Verd ori'shya beskar'gam_ I tell myself, repeating the words in the language of my father in my head. _A warrior is more than her armor_ , and although I know it’s true, that the armor is just a tool, it still hurts to see a stranger wearing the jade bodysuit that has led me to this life.

“Ok, so I’m going to go make a spectacle of myself, definitely get shot at, and you’re just going to go into the cities underground and hope that calls them off?” He asks, clearly not understanding the plan. 

“This is _Mandalorian_ armor Finn, Blaster fire won’t hurt you. Besides I know the First Order, and they will want to talk to me alive. They probably will have it set to stun.”

“Probably isn’t exactly reassuring.”

I roll my eyes and step out of the alcove. My arm wraps feel odd, in this place that isn’t a desert but is unbearably warm anyway. I feel as though I am walking through ‘fresher after a long time beneath the stream. I count silently in my head, praying that Finn has enough presence of mind to keep from rushing through the numbers. 

I can see my destination ahead, a small alcove, one that would be hard to notice if I hadn’t been coming to this planet for jobs for years. Stormtroopers are on this street, marching aimlessly as they carry out their duties with all the enthusiasm of a whipped Taun Taun.  
When I reach 94 I hear a commotion, the mechanized voice of stormtroopers shouting before the _Pew_ of blasters being shot follows. 

I don’t know how I find that place, reaching into myself and that part of my soul that can _feel_ the universe around me. Even I know it’s clumsy, like wading in chest deep water because I don’t know how to swim. 

Then I feel it, the attention of his presence, the bone deep feeling that he can _see_ me, even though I am utterly alone. 

I flick the emitter, a bright blue beam lighting the passage in front of me, and disappear. 

 

…..

 

The undercity is cooler than the streets of Myrra, but the humidity condenses on the metal halls of the ancient droid factory, dripping in icy slaps onto my exposed face like tears. I count my turns, 3 left, 1 right, then a long hallway. It is second nature to me now, I have spent so long in unfamiliar places while chasing down fugitives that my internal gyroscope has been calibrated to an extreme, but somehow these tunnels are even more confusing than even the most convoluted of star destroyers. The darkness is complete, and the nature of the metal and stone hallways lends itself to echoes and eerie noises. 

I can feel Kylo Ren through the Force, the vast darkness of his signature moving haphazardly. He must realize by now that Finn was a distraction, that I have evaded him and come into the bowels of the undercity, for he draws closer with every breath I take. 

This is the tricky part of the plan, Finn needs to get back to the Free Mandalore and meet me at the old Satrap’s palace, and I need to get there while keeping Kylo Ren distracted. The former stormtrooper said it himself, take away their orders and the stormtroopers are useless. Most of them don’t want to do what they are forced to, and without the stick they don’t reach for the carrot. 

I’m nearing the end of the tunnels, when I feel him, suddenly much closer than I had thought. The hairs on my arm raise, a chill tip toes down my back as my awareness focuses on this stranger.

Ahead I hear a crash, and in the blue glow of the lightsaber something rolls into my view.

I stop. 

It’s a piece of a droid, the head of a long since outdated battle droid, probably Clone War era. I move forward, toing the creepy skull devoid of its internal wiring with my boot. 

When I look up I scream. 

Before me is an animal--no creature. It’s skin is so pale it is nearly translucent, and it is completely hairless. The lack of eyelashes and eyebrows making it seem almost painful in appearance. 

I abandon all logic and run, not tracking where I am or what turns I take. I can hear the creature scuttering behind me, and I don’t stop to look back. This is no alien, no sentient being that can be reasoned with. This is an _Uugteen_ , the human monsters that haunt the deepest darkest parts of this planet, and they will kill me in the most brutal way. 

I am fast, but this creature is all limbs, its frame knowing the shifting detritus that litters the passageways, and I feel it gaining on me. I see a door and nearly sprint past it, sliding on the dusty ground as I desperately change my trajectory, taking off down a hall and--

I fell. 

The light saber winked out during the fall, my hand accidentally brushing the emitter. The darkness is so complete I wonder if I died, if my mind mercifully blacked out so I didn’t have to experience the brutal death at the hands of the the _Uugteen_. 

It’s then, at the far end of a long hallway that I see the red aura of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber. 

I stand, and move towards it, willing to trade the darkness for an enemy I know. I resist the urge to ignite my own saber for it’s light, and instead gingerly step forward, each step testing the ground to ensure I don’t make a sound. 

He stalks towards me as I move towards him, the crackling energy of his blade throwing shadows that dance across his helm. 

“Where are you Jedi” His modulator covers any inflection in his voice, as he stalks forward. “I was looking for the map, but you will do just fine.”

I have no idea what he is talking about, but the anger that I hear cracks his voice, even with the modulators even tone. I slide to the side, hoping to slip past him and find another exit in the dark. My back brushes up against the wall, the moisture dampening the leather jacket. 

Then it bites me. 

I scream again, igniting the saber in a fit of panic. I’ve stumbled into three of the _Uugteen_ , their skin slick and cold against the panicked heat of my own. They claw at my arms, grabbing the jacket and trying to wrench the saber from my grasp. Despite my training I panic, ignitign the blade and wielding it like club as I desperately try to fend them off. 

In a moment he is there, using his own blade to hack them apart. They whimper and hiss before he dispatches them, and soon the hall is silent once more. 

“The girl” he hisses through the modulator. “What are you doing here?”

I feel the phantom rain on my skin, the same mask that he stared at me in the rain now inspecting me in the darkness. _I wasn’t just an observer in the vision, he saw me too._ I can’t tell if he has put it together, if he realizes that the nobody standing before him is Kira Fett the bounty hunter. 

I don’t want to find out. 

“I am no Jedi” I cough out, the blue of my blade and the red of his so close that we are both bathed in a purple glow. 

“You aren’t the one connecting us. The effort would kill you” He says, his head still tilted at that infuriating angle. I feel like an insect being inspected by an overly eager child, one who is just as likely to tear off my wings as they are to let me fly away. He takes one step forward. 

I take one back. 

“Did Luke send you, too afraid to do his own dirty work and finish the job? The old man has lost his mind if he thinks some padawan could defeat me.”

“I said I’m not a Jedi.” I grind out, I feel him brushing against my shields, and I make my mind go blank. I think of the first time Fenn took me to see the ocean, the way the waves rolled beneath me and how happy I had been. Instead I feel lonely, the pain of his absence even sharper as I realize how my life has unraveled around me. 

“No, you’re not.” He responds. “You’re so lonely.”

He moves his lightsaber then, so it is pointed to the ground instead of held before my face. He holds his hand before hin, upturned so I see the leather of his gloved hands. 

“Join me. I could teach you the ways of the force.”

 _Dar'jetii_ , my mind whispers. This is not the Jedi my father spoke of, not like Skywalker who was so rooted in his ways that he couldn’t survive in this world. Whether he has disappeared or died I do not know, but in this moment I hate that myth that I do not know. The resistance is dying, I felt the Hosnian system die, and he can’t come to their aid. They have poured all their resources into tracking down a legend, a story, and people died because of it. 

I keep the ocean in my mind, feel the peace it brings me and wonder if there were oceans on Hosnian Prime, if there were the thousands of colorful fish I saw in schools, or the branching corals of a thousand colors that I burned my eyes trying to see. 

If now they have become nothing but stardust. 

“No” I reply, and I see him raise his hand, feel the way he moves to manipulate the force, just as I reach out with my own ability. 

My thumb flicks my emitter just as he brings his hand up to my face, and through the force I press on deactivate his own lightsaber. 

For one moment in that darkness, the kind that can only be experienced in the most distant reaches of space and the deepest hearts of planets I swear that I _see_ another face, behind dark hair and heavy brows. 

But then I’m running, and leaving him behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! If you have any thoughts please feel free to comment :)

**Author's Note:**

> Mandalore is the head of the Mandalorian race. In this universe I am considering the Mandalorians to have declined significantly. 
> 
> Comments or Kudos are greatly appreciated! They seriously inspire me and encourage me to write more.


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